A ‘Real Deal’ for boxers
Holyfield guiding ’em as ‘Mama’ would
PROVIDENCE — Evander Holyfield learned many things from his loving but often hard-as-nails “Mama,” Annie, but seven words are the ones that struck deepest.
They are the words that fueled his rise from poverty to becoming the best cruiserweight in boxing history and the only man to win the heavyweight title four times. Each step along the way was taken with the echo of those words inside his head, each a declaration of his responsibilities.
“Listen, follow directions, work harder and don’t quit,” Holyfield said yesterday while sitting in a small Rhode Island restaurant discussing his old life and his new one with an old friend. “Don’t ever quit. My mama told me if you don’t ever quit eventually you’ll reach your goal.”
Holyfield’s goal from the first time he put on boxing gloves as an 8-year-old kid was to win. That he did. He lost, too, of course, because that is what boxing and life is about. Wins and losses and how you handle each is the truest measuring stick of us all.
Few fighters ever handled the vagaries of the boxer’s life better than Holyfield, always remaining focused on his goal, which was to become the unified heavyweight champion. He accomplished that and much more but also lost title belts and most of the hundreds of millions of dollars he’d earned in the hardest addresses in sports, inside boxing rings and promoters’ offices.
None of that was as important as this: Evander Holyfield was the same man with his hand raised or his head down. He was the same man when he was living in a 109-room mansion outside Atlanta as he was the day the bank foreclosed and it was gone. He was, as his nickname implies, “The Real Deal.”
Today, at 55, he’s embarking on a new and improbable career. He wants to make deals that are real. Holyfield used to fight for promoters. Now he is one.
Holyfield brings his The Real Deal Boxing Company to Providence tomorrow night, where he will stage the first show at The Strand Ballroom and Theatre in 20 years. The card headlines Providence featherweight prospect Toka Kahn-Clary (23-1, 16 KOs) in the main event against undefeated John Vincent Moralde (19-0, 10 KOs), a tough kid from the Philippines who 21⁄2 years ago inadvertently killed a man in the ring. That is the sport, and the risk, these young men have chosen.
Kahn-Clary was a National Golden Gloves champion who competed at the 2012 Olympic Trials, posting a glittering 13111 amateur record before turning pro five years ago in Providence. He has not fought in his hometown since but Holyfield signed him after promoter Bob Arum released him.
“I never had nobody throw me over that way but if I win the people around me say, ‘We did it,’ ” Holyfield said. “If I lose, they say, ‘You lost.’ I understand what these fighters go through. I went through it all, too. I had my ups and downs. What I tell them is I can’t make you a champion. I can give you an opportunity. Only you can make yourself a champion . . . .
“What they have to do is believe what I’m saying but most of all they got to believe in themselves. They have to know who they are.”
Holyfield always did. He knew he was a winner long before the world realized it. He knew it even when he was disqualified unfairly at the 1984 Olympics, costing him a shot at a gold medal. He knew it the night he faced down a flint-hard man named Dwight Muhammad Qawi to win the cruiserweight title after 15 brutal rounds of shared assaults.
And he knew it when he moved up to heavyweight as everyone said he was too small and not only won that title four times but twice battered Mike Tyson into submission. You don’t beat Tyson, Riddick Bowe, George Foreman, Larry Holmes and so many others if you aren’t the real deal.
Now Holyfield plans to be that again, on the other side of boxing.
“I wouldn’t have gotten involved if I didn’t think we can be the best,” said Holyfield, who along with partners Sal Musumeci and Eric Bentley formed the promotional company six months ago and has staged three cards so far.
Holyfield fought for both the Duva family and Don King, the latter an odd marriage that resulted from his first victory over Tyson. Asked if he would approach promoting like King, Holyfield laughs.
“Not like that,” he said. “He tried to restrict what the fighter could make. Dan Duva was very honest about what the situation was. It took me a while to realize that.
“The only reason I didn’t get into this before is I couldn’t find the right person who I was sure wasn’t going to cheat the fighter. I want to make sure our fighters get the money they should get. And Sal and I care about the fighters’ health. We can prevent things that happened to other fighters. I don’t want them to be messed up at the end.”
Holyfield’s company has a medical team that goes so far as to conduct pre-fight and post-fight brain imaging tests to monitor their condition. He also does something few promoters other than former world champion Oscar De La Hoya could with any real cache. Sometime on Saturday morning, Holyfield will sit down for brunch with Khan-Clary and the rest of his boxers on the eightfight card and critique their performance. He does it, he says, because he believes one of the critical things in boxing is to be a realist.
“Every fighter makes mistakes,” Holyfield said. “If you can minimize them, your chance of winning is greater so you need to look at the fight and be honest with yourself. I always looked at my tapes to see what I did wrong because that’s what the next guy I was fighting would do. I want my fighters to understand that.”
That’s where listening comes in. As for the work for which Holyfield was legendary, guys like KhanClary must do that themselves because in the ring they stand alone. But lurking not far behind them will stand The Real Deal, a living lesson about what seven words can do for you.
“They all want to be champions,” Holyfield said, “but do they all want to pay the price? I don’t lie to them. The only reason you promote is you can’t do it no more. You realize time passes you by. You can’t deny it if you’re smart. Now I’m trying to help kids like Toka find their dream. Any question they got, I’ll answer. I always tell them, I only look good as a promoter if they look good.”
And they listen, follow directions, work harder and don’t quit.